Kinect Sells… a lot

Chalk this one up to another prediction Steerpike got wrong. Microsoft’s motion sensing Kinect hardware has moved a stunning eight million units in 60 days… far, far more than the company’s prediction (one that I at the time thought bombastic, absurd, and unbelievably out of touch) that it would move three million units by the end of 2010.

We’re hearing of some issues here and there – some claim a new spate of red rings; I gather the device setup isn’t as straightforward as it could be; and of course there’s still debate over how much space you need and whether you’ve got to get rid of your coffee table.

But with eight million units sold, we must consider the larger philosophical questions. I admit I thought Kinect and Playstation Move both would bomb completely, and be stuck with only the usual Wii-like party games. But here Kinect sold eight million (Move isn’t doing nearly so well); Heavy Rain has already been ported for Move and Kinect has the upcoming Child of Eden, a game that looks almost transcendent. And yet motion controls haven’t yet fully integrated with the expected game experience. A lot of Wii games depend on traditional controller-style play. Moreover, despite the sales numbers, I have a feeling many a Wii is gathering dust in many a media cabinet. There’s a difference between “buy” and “use.” So will Kinect bridge this gap?

Console systems have long suffered a very basic issue: there has not yet been produced a control scheme as precise and flexible as the keyboard and mouse. While many players have gotten quite adept with thumbsticks, WASD reigns supreme. Even the Wiimote and Move can’t compare to the precision of an on-surface mouse. It’s a matter of human engineering, and the level of precision which we can apply to certain motions and digits.

Kinect (may be) different. If it reliably behaves as it claims it will, it could bring precision control to strategy games like Starcraft 2 on the console. But here in just the second generation of this kind of hardware (think of Wii as first, Move and Kinect as second), it’s too early to guess how precise things will eventually get. Though if Kinect can read our expressions now, Kinect 2 will probably be able to track eye movements, and from there the sky might be the limit.

Many “mature” people have told me they’d be interested in getting into video games but can’t because of the learning curve. “You take to it naturally,” they say. Well no, I didn’t. I started with an Atari 2600, which had one button and a joystick. The NES controller had two buttons and a D-Pad. The A, B, and C buttons on the Genesis controller were an embarrassment of riches. Of course a 360 controller, which has seventeen direct inputs plus two analog channels, seems like too much to start with. That young children can do it without the benefit of starting with a 2600 controller is based (in my opinion) on new theories of genetic and evolutionary memory – there have been some studies (which naturally I can’t find right now) that basically say even some very recent life skills are transferred over in the womb, and so eight year olds these days take to modern controllers like a fish to water. My eight year old self would have gotten the hang of a 360 controller pretty quickly, but of course by then I was already indoctrinated with the idea of what video games were and how to use them. A nongaming septuagenarian would also become accustomed to it, but it might take a little more time and patience.

Motion control comes sort of naturally to all people, so it follows that Kinect seems, to them, user-friendly. Even Move requires that you hold an object in your hand – an object that to a nongamer is alien and potentially intimidating. Though ironically, I thought that Move’s evolutionary step forward would prove more successful than Kinect’s revolutionary step forward.

I’m actually toying with the idea of getting one. There are no games I want to play on it, though Child of Eden is coming, but even so I admit I’m almost curious enough about how well it works to blow $150. I’m fairly certain my living room is large enough, and though the coffee table would have to go, it’s light enough to slide out of the way. Perhaps I could get one of those fitness games and get into shape. I’m not getting any younger. It couldn’t wind up like the elliptical I bought years ago; the device is too small to act as a clothes rack.

That thought aside, it sold eight million units in two months. The level of self-delusion I thought Microsoft was indulging in when they said they’d sell three million is pretty high, and look at it now. Honestly I thought they’d be lucky to sell three million across the entire lifecycle of the device. This is probably why I’m not considered one of the industry’s top analysts.

Things are changing out there. Before it shipped, everyone including me couldn’t wait to mock it – you need a room the size of an airplane hangar, you can’t sit down, blah blah blah. And then eight million units later, at $150 apiece, Kinect may have the last laugh. A co-worker was asking me about Kinect before Christmas. His daughters, seven and twelve, wanted it. He did not.

“You have no choice,” I said, “whether or not you want it, any household with young children will have to buy the thing on account of Kinectimals.”

He sighed.

So maybe that eight million is just the number of households whose kids finally drove their parents apeshit enough to buy the god damned thing so they could pretend to pet baby tigers and stuff. Or maybe not. After all, he did come into my office this morning and say “Matt, the Kinect is the most amazing piece of technology I have ever seen.”

About the author

Tap-Repeatedly Overlord Steerpike is a games industry journalist and consultant. His earliest memories are of video games, and hopes his last memories will be of them as well. He’s a featured monthly columnist with the International Game Developers Association, and is internationally published in an assortment of dull e-Learning texts and less dull gaming publications. He also lectures on games at various universities.

29 Responses to Kinect Sells… a lot

Maybe we should have listened to those crackpots who said we’re all goners on May 21, 2011, because apparently THE END IS NIGH!

Armand01/06/2011

I’m putting on my cynical hat here. Watch:

I wonder how much of this is really due to the insane media blitz involved with the product’s launch. I mean, Oprah endorsed it! Since when were people tuning into Oprah for gaming advice?

All the videos I’ve seen of it have looked just plain silly, with less than responsive controls, and people looking uncomfortable and annoyed. Than again, maybe that just some kind of sub-conscious selection process I’m using to only find unhappy Kinnect videos.

I feel like pop culture is always embracing something I don’t understand. Reality TV, Atkin’s Diet, and now motion controls.

I’m in the same boat with xtal. The end is nigh…

Hanover01/06/2011

I have one and I love it. It works a lot better than you think…it really depends on the game.

Also, the space you need ALSO depends on the game. The nice thing is, it tilts itself to try to give you the best amount of space.

As for it’s uses…I’ve lost 10lbs from using the Yourself Fitness for the last three weeks. There are downloadable cardio classes (such as the newly released Bollywood Dance Aerobics class) for that “game” that really do give you a great workout…and it finds and tracks all your limbs independently.

The key to it all is that you do NOT have to hold anything in your hands. That means less risk of flinging stuff at the TV as well as more flexibility for holding dumbbells or perhaps even the controller to give you analog control while your body controls some other aspect of the game. This gives it A LOT more flexibility than Move or the Wii.

Then you have to mention the Voice Recognition…which could be used with or without the camera….so now you’ve added even more possibilities.

Kinect works and it’s extremely intuitive and flexible. Microsoft really knocked this one out of the park.

Max "xtal" Boone01/07/2011

Well, what do you say to that?

We can’t exactly tell Han that he’s not enjoying his Kinatal now can we, Armand?

Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others!

< crowd cheers >

Ajax1901/07/2011

I’m actually toying with the idea of getting one.

Please do. I want to come over and watch you play on it. It could be the highlight of my year.

I am pretty sure that my tiny living room could not accomodate one of these things. Then again, I don’t think my dog would allow it. Assuming he could stay in the room (something he’s not capable of when I’m playing a regular Xbox or PC game, he’s very sensitive), there is no way he wouldn’t want to be involved in the action.

While I still have no interest in such things, I am glad to hear it is doing well.

By “sensitive,” people, Ajax19 means his dog is “totally batshit insane.” Just a clarification.

I’m glad you’re enjoying yours, Hanover. The prospect of losing ten pounds intrigues me. But I do wish there were more game type games available for it. I don’t want Kinectimals. Child of Eden looks like something special, but it’s just one game, and even it is… quirky. Show me this can work with a strategy or sim game.

Hanover01/07/2011

I know while there arent a lot of great games for it. Kinect Sports, Dance Central and Your Shape really show the potential.

In Kinect Sports you can actually conduct a stadium audience wave at the very beginning by pointing at the stadium audience with one hand. The part of the stadium crowd you are pointing at will stand up and cheer. When you raise both hands, the whole audience cheers.

In fact, after you do an event such as the Long Jump you can go “Ta-da” and raise your arms and the audience will also go crazy. It’s little things like that that really define the Kinect experience (I sound like I’m giving a sales pitch). The reviews rarely mention these things about Kinect Sports.

Again, not having anything artificial in your hands really makes it immersive.

I’m imagining that the indie developers will also come up with some..ah-hem..innovative uses for Kinect. 🙂

You’re just saying that because I called your batshit insane dog batshit insane. We’ll settle this with a dance-off, sir, like gentlemen.

Mat C01/07/2011

I’ve bashed Kinect on here before. Like many, I was immensely sceptical of it. In some ways I still am, but I’m content with it’s existence. As far as I’m concerned, Kinect isn’t for me. There’s little reason for me to buy it, so I haven’t done. But there are a shit load of people that Kinect is for, and I genuinely don’t know anyone who has bought one and had something bad to say about it. At the end of the day, the people who buy Kinect units just don’t care about some of the criticisms levelled at it before it launched. They don’t read sites like Tap. They can just pick up Kinect Sports and have an absolute blast with it.

Microsoft put their $500m marketing budget to great use. Kinect is everywhere. They marketed it and treated it like a whole new platform launch. They positioned it as the latest and greatest must have gadget, releasing press releases about it outselling other gadgets such as the iPad regardless of their relevance. It’s got a similar mass appeal to the Wii when that launched. Clearly, that is creating intrigue amongst the “core” as well as the “casual”, as much as I hate such stereotypes.

I never expected Kinect to sell anywhere near 8 million units in such a short space of time, but in hindsight I’m also not surprised that it has. All things considered.

Armand01/07/2011

I hope my cynical half didn’t insult Hanover. Wasn’t my intent.

My positive self (and I’d like to think more regular self) is all for anything that brings more people into gaming. It’s something I love, and despite many of the new gaming sensations seeming foreign and not to my liking, they are making gamers out of people who would have otherwise never known the joys of videogames.

And I’d like to think (sort of addressing Steerpike’s concerns a bit) that these new systems are still in their infancy and developers are still trying to figure out what they’re doing. Within a few more years, maybe we’ll see a lot more well implemented features in “core games.”

i would buy one in a heartbeat if i didn’t already own a wii… might even take the plunge later this year when i’m back to work landscaping but i slap myself back into reality and ask, “just how many consoles should a girl own?!” i’m stuck at an impasse with a PS2 and a wii… should i get the PS3 or jump into yet another world with the XBOX?
regarding the “get rid of the coffee table” issue, i must admit, without putting all of my furniture in storage, it was a bitch figuring out how to create enough space in order to use the EA Sports Active… but once the dilemma was solved i’ve found i’m having a blast! (steerpike, i’ve managed to clear an 8×7 space)… the bitch is moving everything back in place after a tough workout!
i’ve adapted to having thingee-ma-jigs attached to my leg and arm and having to also hold the wiimote thru some exercises (btw, the heart rate monitor sucks) but i can’t help wondering how much better the kinect would be…

Out of a sense of journalistic responsibility and the desire to grant Ajax19 the YouTube sensation of which he dreams, I went ahead and took the Kinect plunge. I will report back shortly.

As to how many consoles a girl should own, the answer is “as many as you can plug in.” I love my PS3. Without it I would never have played Demon’s Souls, and Demon’s Souls gives life meaning. I also love my 360. I say go with both!

Hanover01/08/2011

Nah, no offense taken…

After Gameboomers, I think I can take anything…*Shows you the “keyboard control debate” scars*

Kinect is just one of those “You have to experience it” experiences.

As for room…I have about 10 feet in front of my TV to use it. I have the camera mounted on top of the TV..and the higher you can get it, the less room you need out in front. It WILL adjust itself for the best view though (it literally tilts itself)…

I did have to push the couch back a bit for Your Shape Fitness…but thats because it requires a little more space for the cardio parts…and any home exerciser would have to do that if they wanted to use a workout DVD… The other games work with a smaller amount of space. I think you could get by with six feet if you mounted it above the TV.

As for choice of Console, I have all three. I prefer my 360 only because I don’t have to wait 20 minutes for a system update every time I turn it on to play a game. Also, I just feel that when there is a cross-platform game, it always seems to look better on the 360 (Red Dead Redemption is a good example of how the 360 rendered farther distances and more flora/fauna than the PS3). But the PS3 exclusives are pretty amazing.

Heh. People who say “I’d get into games but all those buttons are putting me off” are like people saying “I’d love to play chess but all those rules and figures are putting me off”.

The cold hard truth? Motion controls are NOT more natural than button presses at this point in human history. Everybody uses a telephone, a remote controller or a computer keyboard so being intimidaded by a game controller is pure kneejerk bullshit excuse. There is nothing natural about using a pointer to select a menu option, (especially if you have to point a controller to the screen in case of Wiimote/ Move) when three button presses down will do the trick in one tenth of the time. Digital trumps analogue controls in menus any day of the week.

Also, I have yet to run into a game where motion controls make it easier/ more efficient to play than using a traditional controller. OK, obvious exceptions are on-rails shooters like House of the Dead, Dead Space Extraction or Sin and Punishment: Succesor of the Skies because the whole genre was designed arund point and shoot controls, they’re part of its DNA, but outside of that? No. First person shooters simply don’t work as well as they would with WASD/ mouse or dual analog sticks. It’s ironic: I suffered through two missions in Goldeneye 007 remake using Wiimote before I switched to Classic Pro controller and the difference is literally like going from a bicycle to a Ferrari. Conduit, even Metroid Prime remakes, they would all be better with dual analog controls. I am pretty sure I won’t be playing Killzone 3 with Move controls because I can’t imagine how it could be better than what we already have. Red Steel 2? OK, maybe because it has a lot of face to face swordfighting, but that only means that the actual shooting is devolved to compensate for the slow controls and that portion of the game feels like a PC shooter from 1997. or something. Those are my first hand experiences.

OK, it’s clear that tacking motion controls on existing game models simply doesn’t work, so yeah, perhaps Child of Eden WILL be the turning point, wait and see. But just to give you my impression on Heavy Rain Move Edition: the original control scheme was shit to start with but I guess that is David Cage for you and well.. it WAS an improvement over Fahrenheit/ Indigo Prophecy. The Move control scheme, though, it’s pure and simple frustration. No, it’s NOT more immersive, even the Sony’s fabled 1:1 tech doesn’t make the controller a natural extension of your body. It’s highly artificial and often frustrating when the camera doesn’t recognise your movements. I only bought it cause I got Move with my new Playstation 3 and wanted to put it to some use.

And now I’m off to play fucking SHOGO!!!

Gregg B01/09/2011

Shogo: Mobile Armour Division! YES!!

You speak the truth Meho but I’d sooner have a Wii remote or Move than a 4-6mm space in which to determine the sensitivity of my aiming. Granted, there’s the whole push-the-edge-of-the-screen to turn thing but when it comes to aiming there’s nothing worse than over firing because you pushed 0.532mm too much. I’m getting better with analogue sticks but generally speaking they drive me batshit insane.

It’s perception for one thing. I know a lot of people who have traditionally spurned computer games for a lot of socialized reason they aren’t able to explain but are buying Wiis in droves because that somehow makes it a gentler-it-takes-a-village world for them suddenly. Their perception shifts as they see friends and neighbors, moms and uncles using them and with it their threshold of acceptance.

In some case I expect there are purely physical reasons people can’t use a certain interface like game controllers and keyboard/mouse. And in other cases it’s just how much time they care to devote to put into mastering a different control system. We learn to use a microwave or a remote control because it’s worth it to us. The reward is almost instantaneous. Many games are simply not engaging enough, quickly enough for most people to bother with. But waving an arm and seeing that instantaneously reproduced on a big-assed TV screen does the trick.

Hanover01/09/2011

“The cold hard truth? Motion controls are NOT more natural than button presses at this point in human history.”

We started out with knobs and buttons.

We never started out with a joystick. We never started out with analog controls. We never started out with dual analog controls. We never started out with analog triggers.

NOTHING is natural in our video game world until it becomes natural. Motion controls are the same way. I think this kind of thinking is the same thing as going, “We will never move forward with *blank*” and letting history end up proving you wrong.

Just like years ago when I got into debates that 3-D would never take off for adventure games…that Keyboard controls would be the end of the genre, etc and so forth.

The Kinect sold…I used it tonight as we watched two films on XBLA Zune and I paused and played it without even a second thought of how to do it with Kinect. I just do it without thinking now. So for me, it’s become intuitive. Of course it’s not going to be intuitive for someone who’s never used it before.

No, it might not take the place of your controller…just like Analog hasn’t completely replaced your gamepad for certain games…but it’s probably going to be placed in that arsenal that developers can use when they finally figure out how to engineer it into their games properly.

Armand01/10/2011

I remember the first time I played the Nintendo64, and they had the little analogue thumb stick on there, something I’d never used before. I hated it at first, we all did. We would call it the “nub” like some derogatory term for it. Now, I can’t imagine a controller without it. We’ll adapt to the Kinect style controls alright.

How else are we gonna enjoy full virtual reality some day. Hey, I’m still waiting damn it.

Of all the game pads I’ve ever used I’ve always preferred the Gamecube pad: the main button layout (big green A, small red B, side grey X and Y), the deep shoulder buttons, the notches surrounding the analogue sticks. Never been a fan of the smooth surround of the Playstation thumbsticks, makes absolute 45 degree movement a pain in the ass. And the PS3 rear shoulder buttons? Ack.

I think you’ve got to the crux of it there Hanover; will its capabilities be exploited enough by developers to justify the naysayers forking out for it? And will the buzz last long enough to justify developers pouring money into exploiting its capabilities properly? 8 million units are now sat comfortably in people’s homes and that figure can only rise so the demand is obviously there. Time will reveal all though. I’ve got to say, I’m very surprised to hear that Kinect has sold so well. Over Christmas I saw two brand new Wiis being played by family members but heard nothing of the Kinect apart from some excruciatingly dreadful ads on Spotify. I saw some people flailing about in a shop in front of one, trying to dodge virtual wooden beams flying past with limited success. One boy looked like he was going to take a shelving unit out because his movement wasn’t being recognised properly.

Mat C01/10/2011

The Gamecube pad. The one thing that can make a classic Resident Evil game feel even more unwieldy.

TKA01/16/2011

Hanover-

Do the motion controls work for Netflix streaming also? I’d heard that they’re kind of clunky for menu navigation – is that true, or did they already tweak them with an update?

Thanks for the info in your posts – I might pick one up eventually.

Ernest04/26/2013

Interesting to consider this article 2 years after the fact. Kinect has had almost negligible impact on gaming; however it may be revolutionizing aspects of industry.

It’s true! You could say that the Kinect has had a massive impact on practically everything except gaming… the only thing it’s not good for. Blindness research, robotics, security, you can’t swing a cat without hitting a Kinect. Games? Not so much.

Mine’s sat idle since my seventh Xbox broke, but for a year before that all I did was use it for Netflix. “Xbox, pause!”

Max "xtal" Boone04/27/2013

I’d be up for using Kinect if it allowed me to say “Enterprise” instead of “Xbox”. But I doubt that’s possible, is it?